PhD Seminar: Model for Spontaneous Self-Replication

All life is able to replicate itself, but no current theory can explain how a group of chemical reactions each of which is not able to self-replicate can constitute a system that is able to.

We set up a general mathematical model, and find a special type of such chemical system where different parts replicate each other and the system self-replicates as a whole. In this seminar, I will talk about how this model works (in simulations and differential equations), and the insights we can get for how the earliest self-replicating entities on Earth came into existence.